Direct delivery of RNA sequences to a cell circumvents many drawbacks inherent to plasmid or viral DNA. This innocuous strategy reveals being as efficient as viruses when it comes to conveying and expressing nucleic acid sequences in non-dividing cells, for it does not rely on nuclear entry, precluding any mutagenic events by the same token.

Once efficiently engineered to escape their automatic and swift destruction in most biological environments, RNA molecules become remarkably stable and turn out to be extremely reliable for in vivo applications. In line with our Nucleic acid delivery tools presentation series, let’s focus here on RNA delivery to the cell.